Ellie53

While the SiIvaGunner channel comes with a lot of repeating gags and bits, the ways in which they employ these can vary a fair bit. The channel's foundational meme, the ever-present funny Flintstone man Grand Dad which I wrote about on Waluigi Pinball (Beta Mix), is a simple leitmotif of just 15 notes, which makes it incredibly flexible; it can be employed as a standalone joke as practice for greenhorn rippers, or be wormed into the middle of more complex project. Memes like We Are Number One meanwhile have a very funny sound to them, yet require a lot of time and care to get to sound as good as rips like Robbie's Rotten Mine or Ska Cha Cha (Rotten Mix). And then, on the side of the spectrum completely opposite to Grand Dad, we have the jokes that feel more like a complete and total flex on the part of the ripper employing them. These "bits" are the ones that aren't necessarily reoccurring due to being funny, but rather due to being bangers with a complexity inherent to their composition, which makes any rip employing them feel like a big event. The main example would be Final Fantasy VII's One Winged Angel as featured on rips like I will Never be a Redneck, yet perhaps just as impressive are rips utilizing Dragonforce's legendary Through the Fire and Flames; rips like, indeed, Appleforce.

Made legendary through Guitar Hero III, Through the Fire and Flames is a song known far and wide across the internet; a piece of mainstream music that pierces through to the most shut-in of nerds due to the gaming legacy tied to it. It was the ultimate challenge for play in the ultimate Guitar Hero release, an absolutely unmissable part of pop culture of the 7th generation of gaming, and of course an absolute shredding banger in its own right. It's a natural fit for the SiIvaGunner channel, and ever since around ~Season 5 or so it's seen a pretty notable uptick in appearances - you may remember my writing of the legendary Through the F​-​F​-​Fire and the F​-​F​-​Flames, championing its ripper for his incredible ambitions and efforts made to make the rip feel as complete as it does. Its the typical fun of SiIvaGunner arrangement rips, the age-old question of how to transfer one song's intensity into the framework of a different song or video game's sound; Float Islands (Kirby 64 Arrangement), FEEL SO FINE STUCK INSIDE, and of course medley rips like SNES Mini Circulation all show just why it's such an appealing prospect. And so, we've seen a fair few rips aiming to do just what Through the F​-​F​-​Fire and the F​-​F​-​Flames did: take the legendary song and rearrange it in the style of a different game.

In large part, that is what Appleforce also does to great effect, imbuing the track with the distinct sound of the Touhou franchise. You can read the entries on V.NR. One Was Four? and Beautiful! ~ Curveball of Sean Kingston to learn more about it, but to keep it concise it's a sound that I very much admire and enjoy despite having very little knowledge of the Touhou series as a whole. One Touhou song I'm most DEFINITELY aware of, however, is Bad Apple!! - perhaps the series' most virally spread anthem, and one that I officially fell in love with all the way back in Season 3 of SiIvaGunner through Imperial Touwer. It is, in many ways, a song just as legendary and known to the video game mainstream - if not moreso - as Through the Fire and Flames. And so, in some sense, it's only logical for Appleforce to flip things on its head.

Indeed, the rip isn't an arrangement of the Dragonforce track kept to the soundscape of Touhou 4; uniquely, it's instead the other way around, an arrangement of Bad Apple!! using the instrumental sound of Through the Fire and Flames. Upon relistening to Through the Fire and Flames a few times before writing this post, I had forgotten just how video game-y the original track actually already sounds, with a chirpy synth accentuating several key moments of the performance that just oozes 90s video games. As a result, the two tracks feel closer to one another than you'd once think; and Appleforce as a result manages to feel less like a straight interpretation of one into the other, and more like an even blend of the two sounds.

I'm yet to cover much of what Ellie53 has done on SiIvaGunner before this post, but she's been a constant presence on the channel since the tail end of Season 5, no doubt soon becoming aware of the rising prominence of Through the Fire and Flames rips. She's also tinkered around with Bad Apple!! in particular with Maçã Ruim!! back in Season 7; and so, I suppose it only makes sense that one would eventually put the pieces together and try their hand at mixing the two into one. Appleforce feels WELL worth the wait and is a shining example of Ellie53's growth as a ripper, and I'm hopeful that Through the Fire and Flames sticking around on SiIvaGunner for the foreseeable future can continue to inspire rippers just like Ellie53 to keep finding new ways to experiment with its sound.

Well, would you believe it - its the eighth Season 8 rip being covered, on the eighth of April (half of eight)! And what better way to celebrate this than to cover completely uncharted territory for the blog - an UNDERTALE rip!!

I kid, I kid - though Undertale is definitely quite prominently featured on here, I feel as if it is rightfully earned. It and its psuedo-sequel in Deltarune feel almost like the frontmen of the SiIvaGunner channel in some way, as Season 1 began mere months after Undertale and its music began making waves online in late 2015. Such a hot topic was impossible to ignore, yet SiIvaGunner and Undertale have a fair bit in common that made the game's continued presence on SiIvaGunner feel very natural. There's the lore theming of course, I covered that briefly in Your Best Nightmario, but it also extends to the very core of what Undertale is: A game shamelessly rooted in silliness and absurd, internet-age comedy, yet still able to evoke such real attachments and emotions. The fit was all too perfect, and so the Undertale rips have continued year after year - Hoopache, Outertale, Determination is Magic, BUSTER HAND, and on and on and on. It may seem difficult to imagine that these all manage to stay fresh for so long, but they all find a way - and Shiny Smily TALE, eight years into the channel's life, shows that they're here to stay.

Immediately upon first hearing Shiny Smily TALE, I was reminded of one of the most recent UT/DR rips to have been covered on here, in kris gaming. Its reference was completely lost to me, being an arrangement in the style of stock music popularly used within VTuber circles, of which I'm terminally unfamiliar with - but the sheer vibe, the coziness, comfort of it all just made it such a wonderful listen. I don't mean to say that the VTuber world is one I oppose, moreso that its a part of the internet that still feels so nigh impenetrable to me - althesame, I love admiring it from a distance, just seeing how much passion and endearment is formed within these creators' communities.

And I immediately felt many of those feelings when hearing Shiny Smily TALE for the first time!! Shiny Smily Story has such a wonderful sound to it already, a vibe at once danceable and comforting - "Future Bass", I believe its typically called? - which turns the once-dramatic feel of SAVE The World into something far more pure-hearted in its arrangement here. Its as if all of those emotions still present from SAVE The World are spun into something far sweeter, spun like a legend of something exciting ahead, but with happiness and joy at the forefront. Without too much experience in listening to the original Shiny Smily Story, its hard to assess "accurately" how impressive of an effort this is, but what I DO know is of Ellie53's prowess in ripping - I was practically forced to during the great Raftmageddon incident of April 1st 2024. But even these jokier rafts rides, ones like Raft Ride at Freddy's and TiK ToK, on the clock, but the Raft Ride don't stop, no, show how good she is at merging two songs to such seamless (if, here, comedic) effect. Indeed, I can pick up on a lot of subtler touches done here to make the arrangement work, Shiny Smily TALE utilizes the various ebb-and-flowing sections of intensity and noise within the Shiny Smily Story theme, to punctuate the progression of SAVE The World where it best fits. For instance using a calmer section for the Hopes and Dreams leitmotif, only for it to build in excitement as it progresses, like the very song itself is pulling itself out of isolation and loneliness...allllmost commenting on Asriel's own struggles in Undertale?

Look alive, everyone - Season 8 of SiIvaGunner has now officially premiered!

It may be a bit rich to say as someone running this blog, and with such deep investment into the channel, but...Season 7 really did bring me back into SiIvaGunner in a way I never quite thought would be possible. I'd sort of just accepted with Season 4, Season 5 and Season 6 that the channel had found a new direction: one that I was still VERY much a fan of, yet not quite the one that had "sold" me on the channel the same way Season 1, Season 2 and Season 3 did. I felt as if I was missing that energy of just...sheer visceral excitement for the future of the channel as a whole from the later-year seasons. There was instead a lot of per-event excitement, tons of little events to enjoy and still fun to be had in speculation of what could happen next, yet that aforementioned optimism still felt like it...missing, for a long time. And funny enough - last I discussed that feeling in particular was with Patched Plains Fusion Collab, a rip that Joke-Explainer™ 7000 Fusion Collab very much seems to be intentionally aiming to evoke.

Part of the reason that Patched Plains Fusion Collab works so well for me, and indeed why Season 2 has long sat as my favorite in the channel's life, is that feeling of raw forward momentum it conveys - the excitement of the entire fanbase thankful that SiIvaGunner hadn't actually ended, distilled into an anthem of so many different styles cheerfully pushing us forward. It was that sort of progress that, back when they were airing, I felt was sort of absent from Seasons 4/5/6 - the SiIvaGunner AI was still running things, Wood Man was still off effectively doing sidequests, and though the rips had obviously gotten better the cynical side of me couldn't help but feel a bit sad at how - for a lack of a better word - "predictable" it all felt. And to be crystal clear: A lot of those feelings have obviously changed for the better over the years. I love all of SiIvaGunner's Seasons nowadays, and I realized eventually that the prior-mentioned cynicism toward the new direction wasn't as fun as just, appreciating and LOVING the stuff to come out from the new seasons for the excellence that they were. And funny enough, I feel like that exact mindset is exactly what made Season 7 work so well for me.

Wheras Season 2 is one I remember for its feeling of constantly moving things forward at a rocket-speed pace, Season 7 excels by doing the complete opposite - the Year of Grand Dad is, at almost every possible turn, defined by its sense of self-celebration, a sort of "Sonic Generations"-type of tribute to the entire channel's life. Be it with RIP² as covered in SING A SONG ABOUT HOPES AND DREAMS, the entire incredible April Fools event I've alluded to within Violet Snow Memories, a newfound sense of chaos clearly inspired by Season 1 as shown in Hidden Headtoilets (skibidi toree 2) - yet with Seasons 4/5/6s newfound touch for genuine quality arrangements as found in rips like Forest of Tears. And, atop it all, the long-awaited continuation of the storyline last progressed back in Season 2 with the Christmas Comeback Crisis' eleventh episode. With such an incredible smörgåsbord of content on offer, it feels damn near impossible for me not to consider Season 7 my all-time new favorite.

And that optimism for the Season, that optimism for the future, is why Joke-Explainer™ 7000 Fusion Collab struck such a chord with me, with its release just a few days ago. With Season 7's ending, the status quo of the channel has been fundamentally altered in a way it hasn't truly been in a long while. For the first time ever, the long-present side character "Joke-Explainer™ 7000" is in full charge of the channel - her most prominent role ever despite having been around since all the way back in Season 1. I'll likely be dedicating another Season 8 post in the future to talking about her in particular with the same level of detail I did back in Vote Responsibly!!, but the context I'll provide for now is that her theme song, Magolor's Shoppe, has been a familiar, comforting tune to many a SiIvaGunner viewer since way back in Season 2. To see Patched Plains Fusion Collab not only get a spiritual successor, but one building upon a character and theme we've long grown attached to, means something so much to me and so many others. The added visuals, of her doing her duty with adorable Kirby-themed artwork as textboxes, are truly the cherry on top of an amazing collab.

A really special part of SiIvaGunner that I've dabbled in covering from time to time, is its ability to introduce you to all sorts of things through the sheer variety of rips on offer, paired with some elements having a lot of prevelance. That can be anything from music, like Maroon 5 and their appearance in rips like Sunday Morning, to video games like the Thunder Force series in rips like 88811, and even vast rabbitholes to fall down such as the horror media found in If Pazuzu Sneezes Do You Still Say Bless You?. Amidst it all, I was of course also introduced to the multimedia franchise Love Live through its prominence on SiIvaGunner - yet the funny thing is, I've rejected it entirely yet can still appreciate all that it offers from a distance.

Such is the case for Guilty Eyes Creeper, a rip building on a song from the Love Live series, Guilty Eyes Fever, that I'd previously never heard of. I believe I discussed it back with Susume​→​Number One, but I've plainly realized that what Love Live and other franchises like it offers really isn't for me - but in a way, that just opens the door for getting amazed at just how catchy and well-produced so much of its music can often be. And of course, in the case of this rip in particular it helps that Revenge is a banger even outside of its meme status. In a way, that gives the rip a very interesting flavor - two bangers, one I'm immensely nostagically attached to, and another that I know nothing about, intermingling into a new form, blending familiarity and unfamiliarity. The EDM-y sound to Guilty Eyes Fever fits Revenge like a glove, to where it almost sounds like an official, original remix of that track in particular (kind of like the non-Parody version that was made when the original got copystruck?).

Yeah, okay, this is cheating in a lot of ways - this is not on the SiIvaGunner channel, and its obviously not even a rip. But I felt it necessary to commemorate, as I mentioned briefly in Because I Love You, its finally time for MAGFest once again, and the SiIvaGunner team is to host their own panel there tomorrow! And in the spirit of that, I want to just...talk about SiIvaGunner and MAGFest, at least for a little bit. Because the first two panels in particular, the ones that marked the beginning and end of Season 3, are some of my all-time favorite videos associated with the SiIvaGunner channel.

A big part of the identity and gimmick of the channel itself, as you're likely well aware, is the bait-and-switch - to present it as a faceless entity simply uploading video game music, only to instead feature jokes, shitposts, edits, and so forth. Part of maintaining that kayfabe, then, is to intentionally obscure who makes what behind the scenes, to keep the real people under wraps for those who aren't going to dig deeper, in order to further sell the illusion of being an official VGM upload. The team does of course still give credit when its relevant, as any rip can be featured on an album be given full credits there, but just that degree of separation alone between casual fans and ones willing to download an album has probably led to a few too many people being unaware of who made their favorite rips. Back then, I typically fell somewhere in the middle - I wasn't actively using music listening software and thus missed out on listening to albums for a long time, but was still aware of some of the big names you'd see in comments sections, saw some shoutouts from Twitter, the works.

Yet with the two MAGFest panels of 2018 and 2019 respectively, it felt like the first time that the magnitude of what SiIvaGunner is and how much it means to people was revealed to me for the first time ever. The uploaded recording of the 2018 panel, posted by Chaze's own account, features a shot about seven minutes in that turns the camera to the crowd - and it's an absolutely packed-full room of nerds just like me. And even though I've never been able to go to any of these MAGFest panels due to travel costs and complications...just seeing how many people truly do care about SiivaGunner, in such a tangible way, something more than a number...it resonated with me, yknow?

Beyond that, these panels are just such fascinating pieces of history for the channel, such good time capsules in so many ways - and that's in a lot of ways why I chose to highlight the 2019 panel in particular. Rather than discussing the upbringings of the channel, it features members of the team reminiscing and going through Season 3's timeline of events in particular, going into surprising detail into the thought process and direction the various pieces of the year took - while also giving insights into the production of the Christmas Comeback Crisis, King for a Day Tournament, and more. I feel like with the turn from Season 3 to Season 4 Episode 1, you can really notice that the idea of "hype" for SiIvaGunner content becoming so much more prominent, so much more deliberately handled by the team, which is made all the more evident by the King for Another Day Tournament reveal live on stage.

Man, look, it's an hour-long panel, and there's so many small things that I still remember from it, despite last having seen it five years ago. The members talking about their favorite rips, giving a round of applause to all the rippers who couldn't come join them at the panel or on-stage, the very funny last-minute rips made to "celebrate" the channel being terminated a day earlier (one of which I've embedded as the Bandcamp link), and even some slight discussions on what SiIvaGunner as a channel means to the team, what it represents, and what their goals have been overtime. And, of course, the fucking incredible PowerPoint hijinx with Inspector Gadget, which I am 100% going to take as confirmed canon that Gadget's level of sentience and awareness of the real world is just the same as Woodman's and The Voice.

I have, of course, been told a number of times that I overanalyze SiIvaGunner, that I'm uncovering depth that's clearly not intentional, looking too much into a silly meme channel. And sure, I'd admit that I do overthink things to a degree, anyone who read Vote Responsibly!! should be able to tell you as much. Yet its stuff like these in-depth behind-the-scenes looks, these moments of getting a face and a voice to attach to the works, that really just felt super validating to me even back then - that the intentions and goals of the channel that I myself had picked up on were in fact some sort of direction that the team itself were steering toward. And though Nape Mango does indeed declare in this very panel that "Everything is a coincidence with SiIvaGunner", I'm forever in awe at just how good the team has been at lining those coincidences up into something genuinely incredible.